When it comes to prominent members of Donald Trump’s team, Betsy DeVos seemed like an unlikely critic of the former president. After all, the former Republican Education secretary has earned a reputation as a far-right ideologue and a GOP megadonor — who served for nearly four full years in the Trump cabinet — not a moderate who was likely to have a problem with the former president’s abuses.
But as DeVos prepares to release a new book, she talked to USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques about when she reached her breaking point.
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos says she watched with horror as the events of Jan. 6, 2021, unfolded at the nation’s Capitol. She could no longer stand by the president, whom she believed was culpable in the violence that day through his actions — and inaction. And so the next day she submitted her resignation letter to then-President Donald Trump.
The former cabinet secretary wrote in her not-yet-released book, “To me, there was a line in the sand. It wasn’t about the election results. It was about the values and image of the United States. It was about public service rising above self. The president had lost sight of that.”
What’s more, DeVos told USA Today that in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, she thought it was at least possible that the White House cabinet would try to remove Trump from office by way of the 25th Amendment. In fact, according to the former Education secretary’s version of events, it was on Jan. 7 when she personally spoke with other cabinet members about this possibility — and even talked to then-Vice President Mike Pence about the process.
“I spoke with the vice president and just let him know I was there to do whatever he wanted and needed me to do or help with, and he made it very clear that he was not going to go in that direction or that path,” DeVos said.
Later that day, she resigned.
To be sure, the former Education secretary is hardly the first former administration official to try to rehabilitate her image and sell some books. The fact remains, however, that by any fair measure, DeVos was extraordinarily bad at her job. The United States has never seen a fiercer opponent of public schools leading the Department of Education.
But that doesn’t make her perspective irrelevant.
For one thing, if DeVos’ version of events is accurate, it’s significant that she’s confirmed conversations from early last year — among members of Trump’s own cabinet — about trying to remove him from office.
For another, the list of former officials who were close to Trump, who’ve since denounced him, keeps growing.
A month ago, for example, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who worked alongside Trump for a year and a half, publicly declared that the former president is unsuited for public office. Esper went on to agree that Trump represents “a threat to democracy.”
Circling back to our earlier coverage, what I continue to find amazing is just how much company DeVos and Esper have.
Former Attorney General William Barr, for example, recently rejected the idea of Trump returning to the White House. Former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton hasn’t just denounced Trump, Bolton also agreed that the former president would be a national security threat to the United States if given a second term.
John Kelly, meanwhile, served as Trump’s White House chief of staff for 17 months, working side-by-side with the then-president every day in the West Wing. Now, Kelly can barely contain his visceral contempt for Trump. And that’s just the start. In June 2020, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, wrote a rather extraordinary rebuke of Trump, condemning the president for being divisive, immature, and cavalier about abusing his powers. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shared some uncomplimentary thoughts of his own about Trump. According to the nation’s former chief diplomat, the then-president is “pretty undisciplined,” “doesn’t like to read,” and “often” urged Tillerson to pursue policies that were inconsistent with American laws. And these are just the top-level officials who served at the cabinet level. The list grows much longer if we include other federal officials who worked with Trump just below the cabinet level. Every president has faced criticisms from partisan rivals and critics in the press, but it’s qualitatively different to hear from officials who were part of Trump’s own team. Many of these former officials had a front-row seat, watching how the Republican tried to lead, how he processed information, how he evaluated evidence, and how he made decisions. And now that these men and women have left the administration and had an opportunity to reflect on their time on Team Trump, they’re eager to let the public know that Trump is unsuited for national leadership. History offers plenty of examples of presidents who’ve clashed with one aide or another, but we’ve never seen anything like this.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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